Stupid Commercials

After receiving some flattering news today, I am in relatively good spirits. I just ate at my favorite cheap Mexican restaurant, Poncho’s II. I’m probably not studying as much as I should be but I’ll get to that eventually.

So I’m in a good mood and then I see two commercials that are absolutely so ridiculous, it got me a little worked-up.

Commercial I
This commercial has a woman discussing how her sister had her yearly mammograms and breast checks and then unfortunately died of a heart attack. “She was 47,” the dejected sister stated.

Whoa! Hold the phone. What is she saying? Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a risk for women, not just men? Are all women at the same risk as men for CVD?

Here’s the problem with this commercial. Premenopausal women are at a significantly lower risk for CVD than men, but after menopause a woman’s risk is roughly equal to a man’s risk. The average age of menopause is 50 years old. It is believed estrogen/progesterone have a protective benefit for young women.

This is where my frustration enters. The woman was 47 years old. First of all, she should not have had yearly mammograms (biannually mammograms for women 40-50 years old, then yearly after 50) and assuming she was premenopausal (based on her age) she was not at an increased risk for CVD.

If she was postmenopausal, she obviously had an early menopause and thus would have an increased risk. Her doctor should have informed her of this. Moreover, if she had started menopause, was she on hormone replacement therapy? Unopposed estrogen treatment is not protective against CVD and actually increases the risk of thrombo-embolic incidences, i.e. deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolisms, stroke and HEART ATTACK. Perhaps she was on estrogen and this caused her heart attack.

What about her family history? She is awfully young to have a fatal myocardial infarction (MI). What about any family members who may have had CVD or fatal MI’s? She could have been genetically predisposed to heart disease.

Was this woman a smoker? Smoking is the number one risk factor for coronary heart disease.

I understand the commercial was trying to illustrate women have CVD risks as well as men. However, these risks are generally reserved for women who are postmenopausal, have a positive family history of MI, a hypercoaguable disorder or prolonged oral contraceptive use. None of this was conveyed in the commercial and would have explained her sister's unfortunate and untimely death. This commercial was just used to scare women about their health and unfortunately the case presented is unusual and not necessarily applicable to a larger population.

As a side note, malignancies (cancer) recently passed CVD as the number one cause of mortality in the United States.

Commercial II
The voice over in a Special K commercial said, “There’s nothing more original…” As the jackass was saying that, there was a stupid cover of the song “Over the Rainbow.” It’s true. Nothing is as original as a crappy cover of a good song. It just annoyed me, but not as much as the heart disease commercial.

Last week in the Big Ten the good guys scored only 284 points, despite 52 from Michigan State and 41 from U of M. Chris is now 2-0, although neither of us was close last week. The competition stiffens this week for the Big Ten teams and the scoring will probably decrease somewhat. My prediction for total points (by all Big Ten teams) for week three is 302. What’s your prediction?